Monday, May 31, 2010

Well a few days ago , I went to visit my Mom, and when I go I usually ask her about her past,she is now 92 and her memory is unbelievable, oh she does repeat some same stories but just the same she is one amazing lady. Anyway this paticular visit, I went in and she was reading the newspaper which she does every morning faithfully. Then she began talking ,she said her father was a jack of all trades and he was a teacher in Maine before he met my grandmother and when they married and had their family,Mom said he used to tutor them at home when he was there,because by then he travelled a lot seeking work. He used to file saws and axes.Mom said she remembers that he used to read to them by the candlelight from a book by Robbie Burns. Yes the poet. Now this would be back in the mid 1920s.Mom said her father thought education was very very important and he wanted his children to be educated. Now Mom said her mother (my grandmother )went to grade three in school and her spelling was not good ,but she wanted to write to my grandfather when he was away, so Mom told me, my grandmother would sit by the candlelight and Mom would sit next to her and Grandmother would ask Mom how to spell a certain word and Mom helped her or if she made a mistake in spelling Mom would be by her side correcting her. Now I found this very interesting because it made me feel like I was there, it made me feel good knowing about my grandparents, how they lived, if you are into genealogy or family trees you probably understand what I mean. Our ancestors were much more than names and dates, they were human like you and I, they lived, they loved, they cried, they laughed. So these are things for us to know and cherish and pass down to our children and their children. If you have some relatives who can share stories like these, visit them, ask them questions,and write down all that you can find.Now changing the subject, I created that Bingo Shirt above, I sort of like the poem that I changed the words to what I wanted to say. You can find that shirt in my tee shirt folder at http://www.zazzle.com/allicor* I also want to say, I bought one of my shirts I created, it is being shipped so when I get it (I hope it fits grin) I will wear it, and show you. Oh and I also created quite a few childrent-shirts with Nursery Rhymes on the front. I will probably add more, you can see those in my children folder. I do hope you enjoyed today's blog and will stop by another day.Have a great dayAline

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Last week I went to the genealogy center, as usual I enjoyed myvisit . While I was sitting down looking in the microfilms,RegisBrun the historian sat down to use the next machine and we started chatting. I enjoy our talks when we do, and this paticular topic was about a talk he was going to give at the library about old documents and I was very interested in what he was saying and I could see it in his face and through his voice how he was so into it all. He talked about his finding old documents. Anyway I looked at the paper a few days later and right on the front page was an article about his talks. I am going to share a a little bit with you."The older the better as far as Regis Brun is concerned. The New Brunswick historian gets his greatest thrills when he's discovering a pile of century old love letters in Memramcook, or a French notary's journal in St Petersburg Russia dating from the era of the Acadian Deportation. Brun has been an archivist for fifty years, in love with everything relating to a document, the smell,the touch the sense of discovery. He shared his story captivating his audience with tales of the past. "My father, he said always told me, you're not good at fishing, you might as well stick to books." His conference was titled The pleasure of the document. He sais when he was young when the rest of the family was at mass he would go up to the attic and look into cracks in the wall and pull out things like old dolls or 100 year old newspapers. Documents have always fascinated me.Among the many treasures he has found is a chest which he had with him at the conference awing those present with its near 200 year old contents." For me ,he said it was like finding Captain Kidd's Treasure. When I opened the chest I found documents going back over 200 years belonging to Antoine Gagnon a well known missionary in the area. The chest had letters, promisory notes of the ones who borrowed money from him and how much they owed. For years Brun had heard stories about that chest and it was only in 2003 that one of Gagnon's relatives contacted him. These documents are now at the genealogy archives in Moncton and the chest donated to the Acadian Museum. Brun continued saying he enjoyed looking through documents as much as talking to people. He said a document is like a novel,with the document in your hands you are touching the lives of men and women.He also located in St Peterburg Russia the journal of a notary from the Acadian Fort Beausejour, the which had somehow made its way to the other end of the world. "I would love to discover old documents, I often thought how nice it would be to be able to enter an old abandoned hourse or barn and find something important or something relating to my ancestors.And I agree with Mister Brun, when I look through old documents it makes my ancestors more real to me, showing me that they were not just names but real people who lived, loved, hurt just as we do.Now on another note, I would like to say I have added some names from the North Cambridge Roman Catholic Cemetery in Massachussetts courtesy of Sharon who gave me her permission to do so ,you can find the cemetery at http://www.acadian-roots.com/ .And now changing the subject what does the tie above have to do with this story? Well nothing really but I wanted to remind you that soon it will be Father's Day and you can find this tie, a few Father's Day cards, posters,mugs,steins, shoes that maybe would make a great fathers day gift athttp://www.zazzle.com/allicor*

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Last week two of my granchildren did their Confirmation which got me to thinking about how things have changed from the time of my youth.
When I did my first communion, it was mandatory, the girls had to wear a white dress, a white veil, white stockings and white shoes as you can see in the picture on the right. And it was a beautiful ceremony, we all walked down the church's main aisle all the girls together, and then the boys dressed in little suits or sport coats and dress pants followed behind us. Today it isn't like that, the girls and boys wear their everyday clothes. For our confirmation it was the same thing we had to wear a white dress.The boys dressed in shirt and tie or sport coats and dress pants. I attended my grandchildren's confirmation as I said, and I was so very proud of them during this ceremony. I would have loved to see my grandaughter in a little white dress and veil. But times have changed
and we have to change with the times. Of course this can be said for my things that have changed. When the first wood stove came out, imagine what our great grandmothers thought ,or when the washing machines came out after our ancestors had been washing their clothes on a scrub board and rinsing them in a tub by hand. We don't have to go back that far even, when the men would use a bucksaw to cut down trees and now they have chain saws. I wonder what kinds of changes there will be fifty years from now,we won't see them but some of our descendants will. Will they say " If only grandmother Cormier could see this new gadget.She would be some pleased.
Now the image on the upper right is a first communion card I created, what a nice way to have the old tradition remembered, by giving such a card to your special little girl. You can find it in the greeting cards at http://www.zazzle.com/allicor*
Thanks for the visit do stop by again.
Have a great day
Aline

Friday, May 14, 2010

Hello everyone, I would like to let you know that our genealogy project on Trails of our Ancestors is coming along great. We have found the direct line of our winner of our draw. The winner of the draw was having his or her family line researched. We have traced her paternal line Caissie up to the first Caissie which was Roger Kuessy/Quessy,Caissie. (confused yet?) Now that we have the names of the direct Caissie line we will add stories and photos if we can for the winner . Next we began tracing her maternal line . This was a little more work, because we traced the women in her maternal line, meaning her mother,grandmother,greatgrandmother, great great grandmother and so on,we finally got as far as we could go which led us to Marie Gaudet. Her father was Jean Gaudet and her mother unknown. I had help doing this, and it was greatly appreciated, since this was our first such project and I wasn't sure how it was going to end. Were we going to hit a brickwall? I thought so at first, because her grandfather was adopted according to the census. But there was a clue in that same census, he was living with his adopted parents Gallants, and he was listed as a Caissie and his date of birth was listed. So off to find a birth record with the same date and name. Yippee ,found it, now to see how come he was adopted. Must find something on his parents, his father married twice, and I searched to see if there was a death recorded for his first wife. Yes found it, she died two years before the Caissie was adopted. So now we found out the reason why he was adopted out. And from then on it was clear sailing. You can see all that we did so far on Trails of our Ancestors group in Facebook. There are also photos of some of the folks there. Now changing the subject, I have also been busy working on my store, I created the above mug last night ,also created a pair of ladies shoes, a beautiful all occasion invitation, a canvas print,a keychain,a binder and a mousepad with the same image. If you are interested you can visit my gallery at http://www.zazzle.com/allicor* You will find a large assortment of different designs , I have some funny tee shirts, something with Scottish Tartans,Acadian and Cajuns products and much more. I do hope ou have enjoyed todays blog and will stop by again. In the meantime do have a great day.Aline

Thursday, May 06, 2010

What is Trails of our Ancestors ? Well as I told you in another blog, we are doing something similar to Who do you think you are which aired on television and was the product of Ancestry.ca tracing the family trees of celebrities. No we are not tracing celebrities but we (the volunteers and I ) have put together a project, where we are having a draw of names of people who were interested in having their family tree done. The draw deadline for this project will be on Sunday Mother's Day. We are going to trace two lines and get as much information as we can on each individual.We are thinking of doing the fathers side ,then on the mothers side we will be doing only the women. We had to decide on a title for our project, so we decided on Trails of our Ancestors, little did I know that there were many things out there with the same title. So how do you find OUR Trails of our Ancestors? Perhaps through reading this blog. Trails of our Ancestors is on Facebook in the groups, so go to Facebook type in Trails of our Ancestors in the search bar at the top of the page then you will be taken to the group. Now this group is not the only place we will be discussing our findings, we will also be working from my genealogy group acadianrootsclub which is by invite only. So if you are interested let me know and I will send you an invite to our genealogy group, as for Facebook you can go there directly from Facebook.You still have time to enter the draw, add a comment here or come see me through my acadian-roots.com website. A note to say for our first project we are asking for Acadians,Cajuns or French Canadians for the draw. Everyone is welcome to the group Trails of our Ancestors. Now changing the subject ,I created the above poem myself, and made it into a poster and I also made a mug or stein with it, you can view them in my Posters and Mug folders at http://www.zazzle.com/allicor*
Thanks for the visit, do stop by again,
Have a great day
Aline

Monday, May 03, 2010

Have you ever wondered how in the world our ancestors lived way back when? Yesterday I went to the ER and I was sitting in the waiting room and thinking. Our ancestors didn't have hospitals. Today you go to the ER, they take a EEG test, they take your blood pressure your temperature,they whisk you off for Xrays for this and Cat Scans for that, finally the same day you get the results ."There is nothing wrong with you GO HOME" grin. But if our ancestors took sick what did they do? Well there was probably always someone nearby who knew all about herbs and remedies. So they were probably called in, and if they had a doctor in the village he would be called. It sure must have been hard for a doctor of healer to diagnose their illnesses. Back then they used the bark of certain trees,some home grown herbs or wild ones too. Today we hear that ginger root is good for this and cinnamon is good for that. Who told us that? Were these remedies from the times of our ancestors? If you read some history books you will read that the Acadians learned a lot for the Native Americans when they first arrived to their new homeland.The Native Americans taught them how to dress for the cold winter months and showed them some of their remedies. But if only our ancestors could open their eyes and see the heart surgery, the cures for TB or Diptheria or Rhematic Fever,or Scurvy, or all the diseases that took so many lives back then,they would never believe how far the scientist have come today.Changing the subject, our Genealogy Project is coming along fine, we have the Title of our Project down to five titles, which will we choose? Not sure yet. We have quite a few volunteers who are going to help if they can, we have entries for our draw and looking for more. The name we draw will have us try and trace two lines of his or her family tree, we are going to try and find some stories if we can. We are looking for someone with Acadian Roots for our first project or French Canadians, Cajuns have Acadian Roots so they qualify also. We will see how our first research goes and then we will see what the future hold. If you have Acadian Roots and you are interested in our draw, you can reach me on Facebook as Aline Cormier, or you can comment here or to to my website listed on the sidebar and please put Enter Draw in subject line.How do you like my lady's tee shirt image? There are lots more tee shirts at http://www.zazzle.com/allicor* check them out, there are some for the whole family.Thanks for stopping by ,do come againHave a great dayAline